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A SERMON 



IN MEMORY F 



I 



! 



THE HEROIC DEAD, 



WHO HAVE FALLEN IN THK 



BATTLES OF FREEDOM 





DE1JVERED IN THK 



CONG 11 K (UTIONA L C H U It C II . 



AT LAKE < IT), MINNESOTA, JUNE i*r, 18<V2, 



v 

D. C. STER.RY. 






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A SERMON 
IN MEMORY OF 



ifS 



THE PATRIOT BEAD. 



PREACHED IN THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 



AT 






LAKE CITY, JUNE 1st, 1$6&, K? 

^ — , 

BY THE PASTOR. 



Tixt. — Ps. 72, 14. And precious shall 
their blood be in His sight. 

I design to apply this inspired sentiment 
to the heroic men who have laid down their 
lives in defence of the Country and its Free 
Institutions, against Rebellion and Treason. 

When I turn over the pages of the past of 
Earth's history I am no p longer surprised at the 
strength of that sentimei.t which has taken 
possession of the more moral and intelligent of 
human minds, that war, all war, is necessari- 
ly wrong — is absolutely wicked. How olten 
does that history show us a world convuls- 
ed in blood, aud lighted in flames kin- 
dled by the torch of unholy war! How are 
we compelled to believe that men in almost 
all the ages of the Past have delighted in the 
carnage of War, and made it their chief 
business! What blood-thirsty monsters loom 
up on all those pages of old, monsters bloat- 
ed with ambition, 3red with the most dia- 
bolic passions, driving the plow-share of de- 
struction through Earth's fairest scenes, 
gloating in the blood of her millions, and 
sending terror to every human heart. 

Just think of some of those battle fields 
with their two, three, and even four hun- 
dred thousand victims lying mangled in their 
gore; and then think of twenty billions of 
human being? — twentv times the Earth's 



present population — destroyed in war, and 
call up the motives, the objects of those wars 
— the immoralities, the crimes, the suffer- 
ings, the horrors incident thereto, and what 
a revolting, what an awful picture you have! 
None but a fiend can gaze upon it without 
the most sickening horror! Is it wonderful 
then that the intelligent, moral, refined and 
sensitive soul turns away with a loathing 
and a horror, that drives it to the opposite 
extreme and impels it to say with O'Connell 
— that not a human right or an earthly good 
is worth the shedding of one drop of human 
blood? And yet this sentiment is wrong, as 
wholly so as that which has inspired those 
monsters who have made the shedding of 
blood their chiefest pastime, and who never 
allowed terms of etiquette, or qualms of con- 
science to come between them and their Sa- 
tanic pleasures. 

Is the shedding of blood — the taking of 

human life in war, under any and all circum. 
stances wicked? Happily for us we have 
the word of God to aid in solving the ques 
tion; and to this question that Word gives 
an emphatic negative. With this Book in 
our hands, and the light of the ages stream- 
ing down upon us, we are prepared to en- 
dorse the words of the scholarly Lieber, 
when he sav- — "Rlood is the cement bv 



which evcfy great principle and right has 
been built up in the world. Nothing from 
the past worth the having has come to us with- 
out blood. Christianity was cemented by 
the blood of the martyrs. Religious liberty 
and civil and constitutional freedom have 
been built up by the mysterious potency of 
this precious cement. Let us not, who in- 
harit what the blood of the past has built, 
grow squeamish at the mention of war. If 
the institutions of freedom, order and right- 
eousness, cemented for us by the blood of 
the Fathers, are assaulted and shaken, let us 
not withhold that which can alone cement 
them anew. The blood is not worth the hav- 
ing which is not worth the spending." This 
language is none too strong, it but expresses 
the simple truth. 

But the Bible gives a significance to the 
p.hedding ot blood, such as no human history 
ever did or ever will. It reveals to us the 
Christ — th" annointed of the Father, pouring 
out his blood for the ransom of our race. It 
teaches us that we are redeemed, not with 
Silver and Geld — but with this precious 
blood of Christ; thus showing that God's 
richest gift's to man — Eternal Life and Im- 
mortal bliss — are the fruits of the shedding 
of blood. And, truly, without shedding of 
blood, there could come to man no remission 
of sins, no blessing, no good forever and 
ever. 

The shedding of blood in war, terriole and 
awful as it is, is sometimes not only justifia- 
ble, but absolutely demanded by the Almighty 
at the hand? of human beings. They are 
sometimes placed in circumstances where 
wot to make war, not to shed blood, would 
be criminally and exceedingly wicked in 



ciple of the Government, and inaugurating 
tyranny and despotism — for a Nation under 
such circumstances to refuse to put down 
the rebellion, because it would involve civil 
Avar, would be a monstrous crime against 
both man and God. 

Thus of old, God not only commanded his 
chosen people to make war upon the corrupt 
dwellers in Canaan, but in one instance at 
least, when a certain city refused to help in 
the conflict, the angel of the Lord, by whom 
we understand is meant the Lord Christ him- 



self. 



pronounced a leas 



ful curse upon the 



place — •' 'Curse ye Meroz, curse ye the inhab- 
itants thereof bitterly, saith the angel of 
the Lord, because he came not to the help 
of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against 
the mighty." And never after do we hear 
of that city. Doubtless it was swept from 
the earth with the besom of destruction. — 
And why? Beer use they refused to come 
out to oattle against the enemies of right^- 
eousness. 

I repeat it then— human beings arc some- 
times placed in circumstances where xot to 
make war is not merely a simple misdemean- 
or as in the sight of Heaven, but it is a high 
crime against humanity, and High Treason 
against Jehovah ! 

Such precisely, is the condition of out* 
country to-day. A gigantic rebellion has 
lifted its unholy hand to stab to death the 
dearest and most sacred interests of human- 
ity; not simply of the American people, but 
of all people, of universal humanity. It 
were easy to show that the assassin's dagger 
is aimed, not at the Government only, or at 
its every recognizance and principle ot jus- 



God's sight. Thus: for a man to stand by j tice, but at the sacred bosom of Liberty her- 
and see his household murdered, and refuse, ] self, and at the very vitals of Christianity as 
altho' in his power, to defend them.even tho' i well Who does not know that Slavery 
he must, in so doing, tike the life o! the as- \ cannot co-exist with Justice, with Liberty, 
aassin— this would be most wicked in the ' or with a pure Chirstianity? It is, as every- 
night of God. And so, for a Nation to stand body knows, the avowed object of this re- 
hj and allow a rebellion like this in our ; bellion to extend and perpetuate Slavery — 
country to break forth and overrun the la^d, ' to found an Empire whose chief corner stone 
•weeping away every just and righteous prin- ' shall be human ehattelism. Every rebel in 



the hind avows this. But to accomplish this 
hellish end, Justice, Liberty and Christiani- 
ty must each and all be crucified. This ac- 
complished, what is there left to humanity 
worth livingfpr? Nothing — absolutely noth- 
ing. Thus then, all the dearest and most 
sacred rights and possessions of humanity — 
all that's worth living fur, are sought to be 
destroyed by this most infamous rebellion. 
Andnow, how shall the man who stands by, 
and consents to this horrible crime — this 
crime of all crimes — on the plea that he may 
not engage in war, be innocent before Sigh 
Heaven? Every man — every government 
under Heaven, is chargod with the keeping 
of these holiest interests of humanity; and 
never to count tieasure, or life, or aught 
else too dear to be sacrificed in their de- 
fence. It is one of the fundamental de- 
mauds of Christianity, everywhere enforced 
by Christ and his disciples, that a man shall 
never hesitate to lay down his life in defence 
' of righteousness, or for the good of his fel 
low man Now in the light of these mani- 
fest truths, neither the words quoted as our 
text, nor those of Lieber used, 6cem at all 
strange or st- rtling. All the great princi- 
ples of right — everything from the past worth 
having — have been the purchase of blood, 
the best that ever flowed ii. mortal veins, 
the best that ever flowed in Heaven ! 

Who does not know that the choicest 
blood of our Fathers was the purchase price 
of the Free Government under which we 
have grown and prospered far beyond any 
precedent in the history of man? 

Ours is indeed a woiuU/ous nation, having 
a glorious ancestry chosen out of the Nations 
of the Earth and wafted across the ocean to 
Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, by the same 
Almighty mind and hand that led Israel 
through the Red Sea and the Arabian Des- 
ert to the land of promise. Under that same 
"guiding hand by which our Fathers crossed 
the pathless sea" we have spread and pros- 
pered until our greatness and prestige and 
power have astonished, not only the nations, 
but ourselves. 



But all suddenly, in the midst of our pros- 
perity and our growing greatness, our sky i» 
overspread with clouds of pitchy darkr°ss 
and a most terrific storm sweeps the land. — 
The bands of the Union are strained to their 
utmost tension, and the cables by which ire 
seek to anchor our Ship of State beyond the 
fearful breakers, quiver under the tension and 

j moan amid the howling storm! The hoary 
despotisms of Europe declare us already de- 
stroyed, and the voices of the people from 
over the sea, ory out that the great Ameri- 
can Nation is annihilated, while not a few 
traitors on this side echo this cry. And we 
are indeed experiencing a terrific shock, 
which we may expect will either kill us, or 
develope us into a real life of liberty and 
righteousness, bitty thousand of our no- 
blest sons and brothers have already fallen 
in this conflict, while hundreds of thousands 
more stand with bosoms bared to the shafts 
of the murderous foe. Countless hearts are 
bleeding for the already fallen, and the hearts 
of millions more are throbbing with most 
anxious solicitude for dear ones, far off on 
the embattled field, surrounded with all the 
terrible enginery of war. Nor tongue, nor 
pen can depict the s:!fferirgs already begot- 
ten of this mqst u.nholy rebellion, no eye 
sees yet the end, no mortal hand holds * 
line long enough to fathom its fearful depths, 
none can tell what shall be, only that more 
blood — rivers of it, must in all probability be 

shed before Peace shall spread her wing* 

again over our distracted land. 

There are many reasons why the blood of 
those who fall in this conflict, on the side of 
Freedom, is precious in the eyes of God, and 
should be in ours. I can name but a few. 
It is precious because shed in behalf of the 
best Government that ever existed under 
Heaven. Our God-honoring ancestors, wis- 
est legislators the world has seen since the 
days when the great Egyptian Emancipator 
established a commonwealth of fugitives^ 
whose institutions and laws were derived di- 
rect from heaven — our Fathers taking that 
government for their model established thft 



best, the wisest, theHreest government the 
world ever had. Who ever had just cause to 
complain of it? I mean of its normal, legiti- 
mate workings, and excepting always its 
countenance of human oppression. We may 
safely affirm that, no man or woman ever had 
just grounds of complaint against it. Under 
its broad shield the largest liberty was enjoy- 
ed, every man's rights were sacred, the aven- 
ues to knowledge, to competency and to hap- 
piness, were open to all. With the single 
exception I have named, it seems to me, that 
God must feel a profound interest in this 
glorious Government of ours. 

Government is of God, ordained by Him 
for the best and highest good of his creatures. 
That is open infidelity which asserts that 
governments derive all thoirjust powers 
from the consent of the governed, thus deny- 
ing that man has received from God the right 
to rule, and the only right he has to rule. 
When men insist that, in then- selves resides 
the only rightful source of civil power — that 
sovereignty belongs to them alone — that the 
will of man should determine the quality, and 
measure the life of every statute, what is this 
but sheer atheism? No — all the just rights 
and powers of human governments are de- 
rived from almighty God. "The powers that 
be, are crdained of God." This don't mean, 
and never did, that all the existing forms of 
human government — all the ordinances of 
such governments— are of God. Not at all, 
but only and simply that all the power, all 
the right men have to set up government, is 
derived from God — that God has ordained 
it — that He requires men to institute gov- 
ernments — that he requires that they shall 
have laws and rulers — that their rulers shall 
be invested with authority, so they shall not 
bear the sword in vain — that they shall be a 
terror to evil doers. 

Were it proper it would be an easy task to i 
show what tbis world would be without gov- j 
ernmer.t, and hence, that a good God would ; 



rrmrli fr.inn 



just powers — not from the consent of the 
governed as affirmed by the atheists of France 
and so often re-echoed by the atheistic, and 
the thoughtless of our land — but deriving all 
their just, their lawful powers from God him- 
self— the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 
Hence God's profound interest in human 
governments. When I affirm that our Gov- 
ernment is the best, the most benign and 
blessed under heaven, T do not mean to say 
that I regard it as absolutely perfect. It is. 
not — it has its defects. Our Constitution 
has its faults. I do not however regard it as 
some affect to do — "a covenant with death 
and hell." I t^ank God for the benefits it 
has secured to us and to the w^orld. With 
all its faults I iove it still. It is a noble in- 
strument, even with its imperfections. On© 
of its saddest defects is its non-recognition of 
the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. It 
knows no God — it recognizes not the Lord of 
all. Strange that such men should so soon 
have forgotten their Great Deliverer. The 
fact that they had suffered under a State 
Church, and that they were opposed to 
any Union of Church and State, is not a suf- 
ficient apology for such an irreverant pro- 
ccdute. Perhaps it was as Hamilton said, 
when remonstrated with for this neglect, 
"We forgot it." 

Another most grievous error in onr Con- 
stitution is its connivance at the oppression 
of the poor. True, its framers would not al- 
low the word slave to stain the parchment on 
which Patriot pens engrossed the National 
Constitution. Then, — more than 80 years ago 
this whole Nation had a conscience that cried 
out against oppression, and so our Fathers 
hoping, praying and believing that Slavery 
must soon die, allowed, with a singular fatal- 
ity, the hateful thing a place in our organic 
law, though tl ey refused it a name. Sad, 
fatal, concession was that. Dark and fearful 



I 



not forget the extenuating circumstances?. 
Our Father's had just emerged from the 
smoke and heat of battle — weakened and 
bankrupted by a seven years bloody war; 
they were not agreed about this matter of 
Slavery -they could not think of dividing 
and so becoming a prey to their enemy — and 
hence it was not so strange, after all, that 
they took such a course. 

Still the Constitution and the Govern- 
ment, with all their faults, are the best on 
Earth. They come the nearest of all to the 
requirements of (rod, and hence He must feel a 
deep interest in the welfare ot this govern- 
ment. And doubtless, so far as His hand is 
concerned in this conflict, it is disciplinary, 
designing not to destroy, but to purge out 
our errors and our wrongs. I know that, in 
the main, our government is right — its great 
principles are in accordance with God's will. 
They were Heaven-born — God-given. It 
would be an easy task to show how the hand 
of God was concerned in the settlement of 
this country — in its seperations from the 
despotisms of the Old World — in the achiev- 
ment of its Independence; and all along, 
down the track of its history. It forma one 
of the most interesting chapters in the his- 
tory of Divine Providence a< related to our 
world. God's hand has been as conspicuous 
in our history as it ever was in Jewish story. 
Indeed we have enjoyed a greater measure of 
Divine care and mercy in our longer contin 
ued and greater prosperity, than ancient Is- 
rael ever enjoyed, so that we may truly say, 
4i IIe has not dealt so with any other Nation 
on earth." Our organic law — fairly inter- 
pretod^-is better than that of God's ancient 
people (with the one exception before alluded 
to) — r ; om* Union, thronged by millions, rep- 
resenting all nations, enjoying equal rights, 
is something nobler than the compact of the 
twelve tribes of Israel; — to the Patriot's eye 
our flag of Red, White and Blue is not less 
suggestive than the Hhckinah which flamed 
above the ark of the covenant. Ours is a 
fairer, broader land, than that over which 
Pavid and, Solomon reigned. Physically, it 



'a the noblest land the sunshines on to day. 
Its majestic, sea-like Lakes white with com- 
merce — its noble rivers winding their way 
through the length and breadth of the land, 
bearing on their bosoms the subsistence of 
the world-— its mighty forests, the grandest 
ofEirth — its boundless prairies — its lofty 
mountain ranges with their mines of wealth 
untold— its vast, rich, undeveloped area — 
these — with its word of welcome ringing 
round the world to all of human kind — form 
a sublime picture— -the admiration of all men; 
while the whole is stamped with a positivo 
unity by God's own hand, who gave us a Ful- 
ton with his steam, and a Franklin with his 
electric wire to bind together, in indissolu- 
ble Union, the shores of the Pacific and the 
Atlantic and thus to consolidate into one 
great and glorious whole, this, the fairest and 
the grant est heritage of human kind. 

But while my vision takes in all the splen- 
dor and magnificence of my country's phys- 
ical greatness, and while my heart cherishes 
an undying attachment thereto, I must never 
forget that Jehovah's object in planting this 
Nation, was something other and grander 
than mere material splendor and prosperity 
that it was mainly for the development of a 
higher style of freedom, and a truer type of 
raanhood. Tins grand object of the Pivino 
mind shines out conspicuously in all human 
history, but especially in our own. For ages, 
until the world was hoary in years, until the 
experiment had been tried, and had failed 
in all other lands — until God, by a most won- 
drous process, had sowed, deep in the hearts 
of our remote, praying, God-honoring ances-. 
tors, the seedd of Liberty and Righteousness^ 
this land was hidden from the eyes of civiliz- 
ed man. It was reserved for a last, grand 
experiment, for the development of a true 
type of humanity and of genuine liberty; foa 
the rearing of Freedom's magnificent temple, 
whose foundations were to rest on the gran- 
ite .of immutable justice, whose pillars should 
stand on the rock of inalienable, universal 
right, and whose grand dome should rise to 
Heaven itself, Most manifest) v such wery 



6 



God's designs in planting our nation. Des- 
pite, then, all its faults, its short-comings, 
its errors, mistakes and wrongs, I love this 
dear native land of mine. I love it for these 
purposes of my God; I love it for its noble, 
God-fearing ancestry. Hove it for its strange 
and wondrous history. I love it for God's 
peculiar cave of it. I lore it as God's final 
choice for these noble ends. I love it as the 
home of Liberty, that child of the skies. 1 
love it as the land sanctified by prayer, and 
consecrated with the tears and the blood of 
my Fathers, to Freedom, to manhood, and to 
God. I love it for its free homes, free 
schools, free churches, free presses and free 
men; for all its precious agencies and glori- 
ous instrumentalities for developing the high- 
est style of man. 

Now, if these views of our Government, of 
our History, and of God's hand in them, and 
His purposes, be correct, how can it be other- 
wise than that the blood poured out in their 
defence, without stint or fear, should be pre- 
cious in the sight cf the Great King. Those 
who give their lives in this cause, die in de- 
fence of God-given rights — in behalf of a 
God-loved land. They die to accomplish 
God's plans and purposes; and though thky 
may not see or realize all this, and though 
wk may see but the faintest part of these 
vast and glorious purposes of God concerning 
our Nation, yet, He sees all and He can and 
does justly estimate the noble sacrifice. 

Was God, think you, pleased with Abra- 
ham's offering his Son on the mount? How 
much less do you suppose is he pleased with 
those Fathers and Mothers who have laid their 
sons, without stint, some one, some two, 
some three, some their only — their all — upon 
this bloody altar of sacrifice? How precious 
mnst such blood be in his sight! As precious, as 
dear, as sacred as his own eternal purposes 
in regard to man! 

I do not belong to that class of personswho 
affect to believe, and who teach, that, so be 
we are fit for Heaven, by God's grace, it mat- 
ters not what are our conditions in this life 
—that it makes no difference whether a man 



be a Freeman or a Slave— whether he iive 
under a despotism or a republic — whether 
he be enshrouded in intellectual and moral 
midnight, or rejoice in the clear noon-light 
of science and revelation — whether he be 
the victim of abject poverty, or of a smiling 
prosperity. Were I of this class, why, I 
never could take these views of my noble, 
beautiful, free and prosperous country. — 
True it is, the tilings that, are seen are tem- 
poral, and the things that are unseen that 
pertain to our future are eternal, and far 
outweigh all that is now seen. But even 
tins is no reason why we should despise, or 
lightly esteem the things that are seen. — 
These constitute our initiatory to the unseen. 
These form the vestibule of the Eternal, the 
preparatory department of the unseen. Aud 
though a man may reach Immortal blessed- 
ness from the direst circumstances possible 
to him — even from that deepest, darkest hea- 
thenism the sun ever shone upon, or Heav- 
en, in its God-like and angelic pity ever 
looked down upon — Ameiiean Slavery— 
though no circumstances, or combination of 
circumstances can arbitrarily or absolutely 
shut a man out of Heaven, yet is it supreme* 
!y idle to affirm that it matters not what are 
the conditions, in this world of human be- 
ings. It makes all difference; and the aspi- 
rations of man after the better in govern- 
ment, in knowledge, in comforts — all these 
are God-given, Divine endowments of the 
human mind. They are right. Man would 
be false to his Nature, false" to the Heaven-in- 
spired instincts and sentiments of his soul 
were he xot thus to aspire. I never hear a 
man say (as I have many times,) that It mat 
ters not whether a man be a freeman or a 
slave, if so be he is a christian but my soul 
pities his intellectual darkness, or loathes his 
shameless hypocrisy and subserviency to 
the baldest selfishness that ever existed on 
earth! Shame on a being — man or devil, 
minister or sinner, who can so debase his 
soul, and stoop so low as to utter such a 
transparent falsehood! 

Mv friends, whatever else we have done-" 



good o: bad, right or wrong — wo have never 
half appreciated the worth, the excellence 
of our Government; we have never begun to 
prize duly our privileges, our blessings and 
our liberties flowing to us from the hand of 
God, through our free, our blood-bought Gov- 
ernment. It happens with these as with 
blessings generally — they are nofappreeia- 
ted until jeoparded or lost. 

True it is, we have talked and boasted a 
great deal of our "glorious Union," our broad 
possessions, our varied climate, fruitful soil, 
vast and growing wealth, our prowess, our 
freedom and free institutions; but with all 
our boasting there has been but little real 
appreciation of que liberties and the bless- 
ings consequent thereupon. Under some 
Fourth of July oration, or other special in- 
fluence we may have had glimpses, and spas. 
medic flashes of these blessings, but'not those 
solid, abiding convictions which their real 
greatness should command. We have had 
no such appreciation of the peace, the pro- 
tection, the prosperity conferred by our 
Government as Parson Brownlow and other 
refugees in the Mountains of Tennessee, have 
had. 

To make this goodly, glorious heritage of 
ours just what it should be — to purify it of 
its errors and wrongs, is not only worth liv- 
ing and toiling for, but it is worth dying for 
— dying for on the field of battle. If this 
rebellion can't be put down, and the great 
iniquity that gave it birth cannot be blotted 
out only as they go^down in a sea of blood, 
then who may, who will refuse to spil! his 
blood to swell that tide that shaft- blot them 
out! If to perfect our Government, and 
make it all it can be of good to man, and all 
it ought to be to honor God; it needs my 
blood, or the blood of my son, shall I with- 
hold it? God forbid! How should I be a 
child of His and do so? How a disciple of 
Him who poured out his blood to save me, 
and who declares, "Greater love hath no 
man than this — that a man lay down his life 
for his friend?" How should I be a worthy 
son of the heroes whose footsteps were oft 



imprinted in blood upon the frozen snows, 
and who counted not their lives dear to 
them so they might win for their posterity 
the glorious boon of civil and religious free- 
dom? 

He who lays down his life for such a Gov- 
ernment as ours, gives it to a holy cause. — 
Who dies so, lives forever. He dies for all 
mankind. Life is not to be withheld an in- 
stant when such interests call for it. Fifty 
thousand of our young men have already 
fallen in this great struggle. Rivers of tears 
are flowing for those heroic sons and broth- 
ers but let us never forget in how holy a 
cause they have fallen. Who can tell how 
immense would be the loss to us, and to all 
future generations the world over, to have 
our Government blotted out, and to have, 
established on its ruins, a despotism more 
oppressive than ever cursed our world be* 
fore? 

Again, blood shed in this cause is pre- 
cious in God's sight, because shed in defence 
of liberty and against oppression; and be- 
cause every drop of it goes to seal the doom 
of Slavery and to ensure the everlasting tri- 
umph of freedom. He must be a blind man 
who, standing in our midst to-day, does not 
see and know this. He must be blind and 
deaf both, who does not comprehend that 
this, after all, is the one great, real issue be- 
fore us. It is no less — no other question 
which is about to be settled between the 
embattled hosts gathering for the field of 
blood, than this, whether Liberty or Slavery, 
shall live in this broad land of ours, to bless 
or curse us, as the case shall be settled, and, 
this being so, who can reasonably doubt 
Heaven's profund interest in this matter? 

This fearful question — Liberty or Slavery 
— which is now about to receive its great 
and final settlement in the world, is no new 
question. It is not now for the first time 
agitating the world. It is, par excellence, 
the conflict of ages, almost from the dawn- 
ing hour of our race — down the entire track of 
time we may trace it, every now and then up- 
heaving the foundations of society, redden- 



& 

ing the earth with the gore of man, and 
blotting from the pages of existence the 
grandest nations of antiquity, as it now 
threatens the fairest of modern times. — 
From the days of Cain to this very hour this 
conflict has been going on. Men have been 
frying, all these ages, not so much to sub- 
due the earth, as to subdue and subject their 
fellows. Long anterior to the days of the 
Patriarchs, Slavery and Freedom had begun 
the fight. Hailing down the tide of time a 
little way we reach the first grand Empire 
known to history — and there in the bosom 
of that land of wonders and of early civiliza- I 
tlon and culture, we find the struggle going ! 
on, on a scale of the broadest magnitude. — 
The first Slave insurrection of which we , 
have any account is progressing amid the 
brick yards of the land of the Pharoahs. — 
The haughty monarch and the nobles of that 
land became possessed with the same idea I 
that has maddened ttcir modern roprescnta 
tives — that slavery is the chief corner .-tone 
of civilization, especially of its highest style. 
And behold 2.} million cf slaves are in re- 
volt, refusing to work, and demanding their 
personal liberty. It is not a revolt instiga- : 
jted by Moses or Aaron, but by Almighty 
God himself; it is an outbursting o! the cle- , 
ment of freedom innate in the sou! of man. — 
With hand and arm outstretched-with mightv ' 
signs and wonders, Jehovah led them out, and 
degraded and ignorant as four hundred years 
of Slavery had made them, he established 
them in absolute freedom. That whole his- i 
tory shows — in its signs and wonders in the 
land of the oppressor, in the signal over- 
throw of Pharoah and his hosts, in that 
grand anthem which Israel sang, on which \ 
side the conflict Jehovah stands. Rem em- i 
ber that conflict in Egypt was part of the I 
couflict to-day in America. Onward the I 
tide of time bears us to the c ays of Greece j 
and Rome, those grandest Nations of the 
past. They, too, re-enacted the terrible 
wrong of oppression on their fellows, in- 
creasing the numbers and the burdens of 
their slaves as they increased in wealth and 



greatness, and power, until, hopelessly cor- 
rupted and debased, a righteous God gave 
them up to destruction. Through all their 
history the great conflict went on — servile 
insurrections every now and then breaking 
out and thrilling the nation with horror. — 
The people whom they conquered and en- 
slaved made bondmen not easy to manage. 
The}' thirsted for vengeance on their op- 
pressors, and stimulated likewise with an ir- 
repressible desire for freedom they kept 
their oppressors in continual alarm; till at 
length, proud, philosophic, classic Greece, 
with her heart all eaten out bj luxury and op- 
pression was groundto powder beneath the arm 
of the Roman. And Rome — what of her? Her 
hour came too, hoary with this wrong of 
wrongs, enervated and corrupted by this 
system which made labor and honesty and 
justice despicable in her eyes — her hour of 
doom came on, and she fell befbre the arm 
of uplifted vengeance. Substantially the 
same, is the history of all the great Nations 
of antiquity. lie is but a poor scholar in 
history who has not learned that Slavery 
more than anything else, was the great cor- 
rupting and destroying force of those migh- 
ty, those polished nations, each of which in 
its turn, deemed itself indestructible by any 
power — each of which fancied itself the n is- 
tress of earth. They ignored — as a thing to 
be feared — the worm that gnawed at their 
roots, and which finally destroyed them.-™- 
The shores of time are strown with their 
wrecks — beacon warnings to all who will 
observe. 

Down through the middle ages you may 
trace the grand struggle going forward, 
deepening and widening until the Magna 
Chart a of England dealt oppression in Eu- 
rope, and throughout the Old World, a blow, 
from which it never recovered, A few 
years roll on and this conflict of ages is 
transferred to the Western woild, here to 
find its graudest battle-ground and its final 
and eternal defeat. Its history here we 
need not trace. Starting with a handful of 
stolen Africans in 1620 it has increased the. 



■naibera of Ui rictims to lour millions o? 
more. Barelj tolerated ta the commence 

mcnt, and even so lite as the adoption of 
the Federal Constitution, it has grown to be 
the all-overshadowing influence Of the land. 
It has become the one great all absorbing 
question of our times, and ha? plunged us 
into a civil war of the most tremendous pro- 
portions, calling into the field the mightiest 
armies that have ever gathered on the bat- 
tle-field in modern ages, and involving the 
greatest outlay of treasure of any war the 
world has ever seen, or man has ever waged. 
Freedom has girded on her armor, tried in 
the long struggle and strengthened by many 
a victory, and renewed the battle for a fi- 
nal triumph; and to-day the "irrepressible 
conflict" i* raging as it never raged before. 
Conscious that this is their final struggle, 
these grand antagonisms are throwing their 
full weight into the scale, and breast to 
breast and foot to foot are dealing their 
deadliest blows. Can we doubt which shall 
triumph! Suth doubts are unworthy a peo- 
ple believing in a just God — a God loving 
humanity and guarding its rights. For 
this is not a trivial, a mere sectional, or a 
political question as bc-twi en the North and 
the South — but it is the grandest, the broad- 
est question of the ages, affecting all man- 
kind in their dearest and most sacred rights and 
interests. It is not simply a question be- 
tween a handful of Slaveholders and a few 
Northern fanatics', as abolitionists are so of- 
ten styled. It is a question rather between 
God and the oppressor — between Him and 
all oppressors; and if men fail or refuse to 
Kee it as such, He will hold the conflict open 
until all men shall 6ee it in this, its true 
light. It i« in short the question of human 
rights as derived from God, and it involves 
the question of His Sovereignty. It is the 
question whether Man — God's own image on 
earth, shall possess the rights bestowed upon 
him by bis maker, or not; whether he shall 
be God's freeman, or- his fellow's slave. It 
is the question whether he has the right to 
ho'd and use, to develope and educate, the 



bis maker has given him — or wheth- 
er those powers, those capabilities and tht 
possibilities of humanity, shall be made the 
property of other men — their goods and 
chattels, their stock in trade, to be bought 
and sold at the auction block; struck off by 
the brutal auctioneer to the highest bidder. 
It is the question between advancing light 
and truth, and a system of bondage and des- 
potism and selfishness before which the Serf- 
dom of the middle ages, and the Slavery of 
Greece and Rome pale to insignificance! It 
is the great question of human brotherhood, 
once for all, to be settled! It is the great 
question whether God or Satan shall be su- 
preme on earth! 

This — this is the conflict in which our sons 
and brothers are falling. It is surely a con- 
flict of the highest significance and of the 
grandest consequences. So God estimates 
it — and so should we. And when you shall 
look at it in its true light, and conceive of it 
in its real significance, you will see, I think, 
that those who fall on the side of freedom, 
fall in the grandest cause possible for a man 
to die in, They certainly die at the post 
of duty where die so few of human kind. — 
Poets ha \ i' sung, and men have talked of 
the glory of war, and sensitive natures, and 
Christian hearts especially, have shrunk 
with horror fromsuchan idea. But there is 
a glory in dying for the right in this war. — 
It is as truly martyrdom for Christ and his 
truth aa was ever endured in any age of tha 
church or the world. 

It is indeed God-like to lay down one's 
life in defence of such principles, and injsuch 
a cause. Christ laid down his life in vindica- 
tion of the Divine Government, and to save 
others. And how emphatically he teaches 
us that "Greater love hath no man than this 
— that a man should lay down his life for 
another." The 600,000 men who have vol- 
unteered their services in this war, have of- 
fered up their lives on the Altar of their 
Country. They have gone forth willing to 
make this sacrifice, counting not their lives 
dear unto themselves so they may deliver the 



10 



Ration from the power of the Conspirators 
who are in arms against it. They forsake all 
the endearments of home and it's comforts; 
they forsake the peaceful halls of learning — 
they sacrifice all their long cherished plans, 
and their quiet pursuits, and go and throw 
themselves into the breach, braving the 
sill-denials, the toils, the hardships of" the 
camp and the march, and death itself, at the 
cannon's mouth, with scarce the faintest 
hope of ever beholding beloved friends or 
home again — and what for? The masses 
surely, arc moved by the noblest senti- 
ment- — love of country — its principles, its 
free institutions. They go to defend — to pie 
if need be — for these. They go to do and to 
die that others may enjoy the fruits of their 
self sacrifice. Now when one goes thus into 
this conflict, actuated by such considerations, 
if there be not something noble, something 
great and Cod like where can you find true 
nobleness, greatness and God — likeness? 
''Greater love hath no man — says Christ — 
than this — this very thing — the laying down 
his life for another.'" This is what every 
Patriot soldier, falling on the field of battle 
in this conflict, does. It is emphatically 
jtruc of hum that he has laid down his life for 
another — aye, and for all others of human 
.kind. I speak now, of course, of thos., who 
are actuated by a true Patriotism. Un- 
doubtedly there are some mercenary, selfish, 
■il spirits who go into this conflict 
from a lower class of motives. But it is a sig- 
nificant fact that our armies are filled up 
mainly by the intelligent — the moral — the 
religious classes. Never before, in the his- 
tory or the world, were great armies made 
up of such material. Never went there 
forth armies with so much prayer in their 
midst There's scarce a Regiment that has 
not its regular prayer meetings. When and 
where have you read in history of such ar 
mies? Such men are Patriots. Such, men 
fight and die for principles. I believe there 
is more pure patriotism — more intelligence — 



more morality — more religion — a .thox'saxp 
times more — than was ever embodied in an 
army before since the world began! Every 
man knov s what he is fighting and dying 
for; and I have, time and again, been struck 
with the last words of our dying soldiers. In 
how many instances, as they have lain in the 
arms of some comrade, dying, the light of 
life fast fading from the glazing eye — the 
lips growing pale and stiff in death — in how 
many such cases has the dying hero with his 
expiring breath, whispered — "Tell my par- 
ents — tell my wife — that I die happy!" The 
consciousness of having fallen in such a holy 
c use seems to fill the expiring hero with 
sweetest peace. "Who dares to say that this 
is not the peace of Heaven! 

Such a death — I repeat it — is noble, is 
grand, is God-like. Nor can I, nor will I 
doubt that thousands who fall on the bloody 
field find that mercy, then and there, which 
before they had quite neglected. Such a 
death is far different fronj all ordinary ones. 
I cannot doubt that God's compassions — ever 
deep, gush forth in unwonted power, free- 
nessand fulness over freedom's dying friends 
and that it is the consciousness of mercy, and 
the presence of some sweet angel from the 
courts of glory, bringing the assurance of 
mercy to the soul, that lights the eye and the 
soul of the dying soldier, and fills him with 
that peace of which he wculd assure his 
friends with his last expiring breath. Dying 
in such a conflict, is a vastly different thing 
fiom dying on the battle field in any ordinal y 
war, where there is wanting — utterly want- 
ing any adequate, any reasonable or God-like 
motive for the conflict. 

Remarks : T -"We must not falter in the 
fiery ordeal through which we are passing. 
Gladly would God have spared us this trial, 
but we would not let Him. For forty years 
He has been calling this Nation to put away 
the sin of Slavery. I mean in a special man- 
ner. At times it has seemed as though the 
Nation would arise under this moral suasion 
and break the fetters of its bondmen. 
But during the past few years there has been a 



11 



reaction in the public mind — a letting down 
of enthusiasm in the cause of the oppressed. 
A period had come when a more decided 
policy touching the Slavery question, must 
be taken; and doubtless God saw that the 
Nation was, through political corruption, 
about to be committed wholly into the in- 
terests of Slavery. Then He shaped events 
which resulted in this War. .And I have 
not a doubt the war is essential to our salva- 
tion, the only thing that could save us from 
utter corruption and ruin. The Conspira- 
tors intend it for our ruin, God intends by it 
our preservation The conflict is upon us 
in all its gigantic magnitude, and we may nut, 
nubt not fiint. Tremendous responsibili- 
ties are devolved upon us, the most weighty 
and solemn that ever rested on a nation un- 
der Heaven. We are put in charge of the 
dearest interests of Humanity, and of the 
name and honor of God. Sacred trusts! 
We must never betray them. They should 
be far dearer to us than life. Having at- 
tained the purest form of Government, the 
highest style of civilization, the best type of 
the christian religion— we are made of God, 
the guardians of all these precious jewels. To 
our custody God has committed these sacred 
gifts; and for their preservation their 
safety, He will hold us responsible 
And above all, He has furnished us with an 
opportunity, and charged us with the exe- 
cution, of a sacred act of justice towards 
the down-trodden of this land, who for two 
hundred and forty years have been crying to 
Heaven for deliverance, and longing for the 
day which their hope and simple faith now 
tells them is surely dawning. Let their faith 
bean assurance tors of final victory. "We 
have been praying a long time to God and 
we knew He could not turn away our cries — 
we knew He would come. We expected 
you in answer to our prayers. The day of 
our deliverance haS'COir.e." Such is their 
testimony wherever they are met, wherever 
our armies go. And it should be to us and 
to the Nation, as the voice of God assuring 
us that His hand is in the conflict; yea, that 



it is pre-eminently of God, and especially m 
tended for the deliverance of the Slave; and 
hence that we are now solemnly charged 
with this duty. And voe be to this nation 
if she shall fail to recognize this day of di- 
vine tis'tation, if she fails in this favoring 
hour to deal justly with her oppressed.— - 
Plainly then, there being committed to us 
these most weighty responsibilities, we must 
not falter till the work is done. We must 
assume the solf-denial, however great, ac- 
cept the struggle, however long, endure the 
toil, however arduous, and make the sacri^ 
fices, however great, demanded of us by 
Divine Providence; and we mnst do it cheer- 
fully, without any st'!'i-li regr¥ts or eom- 
plaints — do i f . as for God. We may with- 
hold nothing — neither money, nor luxuries, 
nor comforts, nor friends, nor life itself. — 
We must curtail our expenses, adopt a rigid 
economy and devote everything to the glo- 
rious cause. We must lay our Sons and all 
our dear ones on the altar, and as they haste 
to the gory field, let us lilt our aching, anx- 
ious hearts to Heaven for its prdtt ction over 
iheni, and hold ourselves in readiness to 
take their places should they fall. 

Let us bear in mind that this is a conflict 
hastened and consecrated by prayer — a ccn- 
flict in which God's hand is most conspicu- 
ous and in which His glory is concerned — a 
conflict in which is involved all the highest 
hopes of the world's progress — all the dear- 
est hopes of humanity. A cause, in itself so 
grand — fraught with such vast and immor- 
tal interests, sustaining such clear relations 
to prayer, to eternal justice and right, to all 
the higher and grander interests of humani- 
ty — a cause having so mnch of God in it, 
and so essentially righteous ought to secure 
our rrost unqualified support. So sublime 
a confh'ct it was never given to man to en- 
gage in before. And with such principles 
to guide us — with such motives to impel ns 
onward — and with such glorious results to 
secure, we need not, we will not fear the is- 
sue. Never since time began was there so 
holy, so just, so righteous a conflict. Never 



12 



could a people go forward so confident of 
God'B approval — so sustained by a con- 
sciousness of being right. Why then should 
not our hopes be large, and our faith strong? 
There is no ground for faltering 
none for fear. We are not only fighting the 
battles of freedom, but we are fighting the 
battles of the Lord. We have not only the 
"God-speed" of the true and the noble of ev- 
ery land, but we have the favor, the approv- 
al and blessing of Him who sits on the throne, 
King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and whose 
smile is worth more than all the armies of 
the world. We have not only the prayers of 
the down -trodden slave, but we have the 
prayers of every true christian the world 
over. There's no ground for despair, none 
for doubt. 

The cause cannot fail. It bears a charm- 
ed life — aye more — it is God's own cause, 
and into it he has infused an element as im- 
mortal as his own existence. He must be 
blind indeed who cannot see that God, in 
answer to prayer, has undertaken the cause 
of the oppressed in our land. He has heard, 
and He has now come down to avenge the 
cry of the long crushed, abused and outrag- 
ed slave; and having begun this work He 
will roll on the chariot of retributive justice 



on the one hand, and of salvation on the oth- 
er, till it be consummated, God never gives 
up a work he undertakes. And now, if we 
will be true to Him — true to humanity — true 
to ourselves — true to the great principles of 
civil and religious liberty bequeathed us by 
our Fathers, baptized in their blood, and 
hallowed by those long years of suffering 
and self-denial — victory final and glorious 
shall sureiy be ours. We shall come forth 
from the furnace as gold purified seven times, 
with all our free, our glorious principles 
shining but the brighter in the eyes of the 
Nations, and before *he eye of Heaven. 

With a God like, majestic courage — with a 
sublime faith in our cause and in our God — 
with a purpose begotten by our allegiance to 
Heaven, and our love to human kind, let us 
go forward, nothing fearing, nothing doubt- 
ing, fainting at no disaster, discouraged by 
no defeat, taking no backward step, making 
no compromise, and the victory shall be ours. 
The heritage of our Fathers shall be saved in 
all its greatness and its glory — our free, our 
glorious institutions preserved, the last ves- 
tige of oppression be blotted from our land 
no longer to cloud its glory, no more to en- 
cumber the footsteps of Liberty in her on- 
ward march to universal enthronement over 
the nations of the Earth. 



LAKE CITY: 

Weekly Times" Print, Washington 

1862. 



Street. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




012 028 259 1 Q 



